1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to a technology for supporting the construction/operation of a network, and more particularly to a technology for carrying out the support in such a way that the setting/change of management information and the like, which a network system has, can be readily carried out.
2. Description of the Related Art
In order to construct a computer system in which a plurality of information devices connected to one another are used, in addition to installation of hardware devices and connection between the devices, the environment setting work for the network system is required. As for the setting items of this environment setting work, for example, kinds of hardwares to be used, and network addresses or the like are given.
That environment setting work is difficult to be carried out because the following two problems associated therewith arise.
(1) The expert knowledge is required for the setting work. For this reason, for example, an engineer who has a duty of constructing the network system needs to go to the construction field in order to construct the network system.
(2) Even when setting the same information to a plurality of setting objects, the same input work needs to be repeatedly carried out and hence the work is necessarily complicated.
As for a method of solving the above-mentioned problems, there is given the technology disclosed in Related Application. This technology is achieved by provision of an information setting device for setting information (parameters) of kinds of apparatuses to be connected to a network, a connection form of the network and the like which are required when constructing the network, an information processor including a file producing unit for storing that information in a file, and a network constructing unit for activating automatically a network operating system by referring to the file.
By adopting this structure, the work for constructing a network can be divided into an information design work for inputting the information which is required when constructing the network in order to store the information thus inputted in a file, and a construction work for constructing automatically the network by referring to the file thus produced.
If the above-mentioned technology is utilized, since the construction work is automatically carried out, if an engineer who has a duty of constructing the network system as shown in the example of the above-mentioned problem (1) has only to design information which will be set to the network system in a company in which the engineer is engaged and also to send the file to the field, the construction work can be left to a person or person in the field, and hence the engineer does not need to take the trouble to go to the field.
In addition, once the information is designed, it will be stored in the file. Therefore, if the file is repeatedly reutilized, then this will result in the same information not being required to be repeatedly inputted. As a result, the above-mentioned problem (2) can also be solved.